


Relax

by Relvetica



Series: Wolves [9]
Category: Fargo (2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 06:24:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1888344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Relvetica/pseuds/Relvetica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Numbers smacked Wrench's arm lightly with the back of his hand to draw his attention away from the mad array of designs and illustrations on the wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relax

Numbers smacked Wrench's arm lightly with the back of his hand to draw his attention away from the mad array of designs and illustrations on the wall. You choose, he signed.

Me?

Numbers nodded and smiled that predator's grin of his. Wrench glanced sidelong at the wall and back, and he asked, why?

I can't decide. You choose.

Why come here if you didn't know what you wanted?

Numbers hesitated the way he did when he was grasping for vocabulary. Feels good, he settled on, though he was frowning. He fingerspelled R-E-L-A-X-I-N-G, only hanging briefly on the X. He was getting better.

Wrench folded his arms across his chest, slumping back a little. R-E-L-A-X.

Numbers blinked. Looks like L-O-V-E?

Wrench shook his head and made his hands into fists before crossing his wrists on his chest. LOVE, RELAX, he demonstrated, showing the looser posture for the latter.

R-E-L-A-X makes you look like you're dead, Numbers said.

Wrench glared, but the heavy man who had been tending to the equipment finally approached them and asked something harsh-looking that Wrench didn't catch at all. Numbers signed and spoke together. No, my friend is deaf.

The proprietor stood up a little straighter at that, as most people did when Numbers occasionally chose to state the obvious. He said something, and Numbers replied, for me. He pointed at Wrench and signed as he spoke: he owes me a punch in the face, but he's nice. So he picks a stupid T-A-T-T-O-O for me.

The man laughed uproariously at that, so that was probably more or less accurate. Really, Wrench said.

Yes! Numbers said. Be crazy. Embarrassing.

You don't need my help for that, Wrench said.

The man said something, still grinning, and Numbers said, he wants to know the sign for T-A-T-T-O-O.

Wrench showed them, touching his face and his palm and his upper arm, and they both looked taken aback. Really? Numbers asked. The man spoke again, and Numbers said aloud, "Well, this part means--" he glanced at Wrench, "--means 'photograph?'"

Wrench shrugged. P-I-C-T-U-R-E.

"Picture. So, yeah, like... arm-picture." That's cool, he signed. Need to tell me sooner. Wrench smiled a little.

The first time Wrench had seen Numbers' tattoos, he'd momentarily mistaken them for sleeves, like the kind Chinese mobsters had in movies, but they weren't. He just had a dense collection of strange individual images, few showing evidence of thought or skill. Taken one at a time, they were shitty tattoos, but as a whole they were curiously striking. A gallery of strange little pictures.

There was one on his chest of a butterfly with a doll's head. Wrench could not imagine any circumstances under which someone would choose that tattoo. Sometimes just knowing there was a butterfly with a doll's head under Numbers' shirt and coat was enough to make him stop paying attention to him.

Choose! Numbers said.

Wrench glanced up at the wall again. There was a complicated print of a winged unicorn in mid-leap-flight-prance; he pointed to it, and Numbers signed, sure.

No, Wrench said. Kidding.

Numbers pointed at the unicorn and the man frowned. No! Wrench repeated, and shook his head to make himself clear to both of them.

Why not? Numbers asked. Serious! Anything you choose.

Wrench sighed through his teeth. He was beginning to wish he had just punched him. I'm thinking, he said. 

Numbers wandered off to talk to the shop owner, who had an impressive collection of shitty tattoos himself. They would have plenty to discuss, then. Wrench squinted up at animal faces and lettering displays.

When he was thirteen, his eldest brother had been accepted by A&M with membership in the Corps, and he'd celebrated by selecting a gigantic image of an eagle carrying an American flag for his back. None of them could believe he was serious; it was like a parody of patriotism. He managed to get through two inking sessions before he gave it up, leaving him with a ghostly outline of a bird in profile. "You should have got a fish," Wrench had written in his notepad, earning him a deserved smack in the back of the head. That was what "stupid tattoo" brought to mind. Not shitty, but stupid.

He still carried a pad and pen with him, though they saw less use now that he had a free personal interpreter. He pulled them from his jacket's inner pocket and and flipped to a blank page. He considered it, tapping the pen against his lips, and then carefully drew a five pointed star. He filled it in with quick scribbling; the pen's ink was black, so he added an arrow to it and labeled it "blue."

Numbers was watching him when he looked up. Choose? he asked from the other side of the room, and Wrench nodded.

Which?

Wrench glanced down at his pad and hesitated, wondering for a moment if this was going too far. Then he remembered the butterfly with the doll's head, and he held up the pad for Numbers to see.

Numbers came and took the pad from him. He looked at it, and he frowned a little. That's it? he asked

Wrench nodded.

He considered it for a long moment. Because I'm Jewish?

Wrench smacked the pad and scowled. Five, he said, not six! I know the difference!

Okay, okay, Numbers said. Okay. He was still frowning, but he asked, where?

Wrench shrugged. He said, Take your shirt off.

Numbers did so with an unquestioning ease that made Wrench lean back on his heels a little. Here this was; Wrench couldn't even identify what half the tattoos were supposed to be of, but they were always color and shape where his eye didn't expect it. He examined Numbers for nearly a minute, hands and face still, and then he made a space between his forefinger and thumb and laid it over Numbers' left shoulder. Just an inch or so.

"Okay," Numbers said out loud.

It took a surprisingly long time for such a small mark -- because it was a solid color, Numbers said, and because Wrench ended up specifying a darker blue. Navy blue. Numbers didn't appear to mind; as he'd said, he was relaxed, eyes closed, as latex-clad hands carefully guided the needle over his skin. Wrench sat in a folding chair the artist put out for him and watched the entire procedure, hardly blinking. There was something curiously tender about it, all of it. There was a difference between crowing your loyalties and declaring someone else's your own.


End file.
